In her correspondence (Collegian Jan. 17), the Associated Press writer Alison Smale describes Bulgaria as a "largely rural nation ... isolated from Western and all East bloc broadcasts but Soviet ones."

It takes only one single look at the map to realize the fact that Bulgaria is the least isolated country in Eastern Europe. The people are used to listening to shortwave radio and watch television stations from the neighboring countries.

Bulgaria borders two NATO nations, one non-aligned, and one Warsaw Pact country, and doesn't even border the Soviet Union. Bulgaria hosts nearly the same number of foreign tourists each year as its own population (the same figure per capita for the United States is nine times smaller).

On the other hand, I wonder how many Americans get their information and analysis about the world events form non-American sources.

Bulgaria is one of the smallest but very first independent states in Europe with a great influence on the European civilization (the Cyrillic alphabet was created there).

Its turbulent history (13 centuries long), full of foreign invasions, numerous uprisings and glory, has taught the Bulgarians to artfully preserve their identity, culture, inward independence and domestic (if not international) freedom.

For example, the Bulgarian people have risen many times against the Ottoman domination. The bloody suppression of one of these uprisings shocked the world and brought the liberation from Russia.

The Bulgarians fought against facism as well (1923 and 1941-44). As a result, fascism was never practiced so brutally on the Bulgarian territory as elsewhere.

Bulgaria is the only country with a large Jewish community where all Jews were saved and none were sent to the death camps in Germany. Similarly, Stalinism was never enforced in Bulgaria to the same extent as in other places.

Many of the changes, occurring now in some of the East bloc countries, have already been introduced in Bulgaria before the opening of the Berlin Wall (free travel, legal framework for a more market-oriented economy, private small businesses, joint ventures with the West, free economic zones, etc.).

At least the first 20 years of socialism brought rapid economic development (the starting point was comparatively low). Bulgaria emerged to be now far more prosperous than all its neighbors, with the highest life expectancy and GNP (60 percent coming from industry) per capita.

Thus, the reason for the quiet climate there, is not so much the political backwardness or adherence to Moscow (something natural and a matter of survival) as the relatively prosperous and more liberal economic, cultural and everyday life. This conclusion is supported by the recent events.

There is a clear trend in the revolutionary changes sweeping Eastern Europe. A more repressive government or more dire economic situation leads to a more dramatic or even bloody (Romanian) upheaval.

The Communist parties in Hungary and Bulgaria were the only ones in Eastern Europe, without being challenged by a popular uprising, to give up their monopoly on power hoping to retain some of it after the upcoming free elections.